This is a continuation of a remarkable thread that has now received 10,000 comments running to well over a million words. Unfortunately its size has become a problem and this is the reason for the move.
The history of the New Statesman thread goes back to December 2007 when Dr David Whitehouse wrote a very influential article for that publication posing the question Has Global Warming Stopped? Later, Mark Lynas, the magazine’s environment correspondent, wrote a furious reply, Has Global Warming Really Stopped?
By the time the New Statesman closed the blogs associated with these articles they had received just over 3000 comments, many from people who had become regular contributors to a wide-ranging discussion of the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, its implications for public policy and the economy. At that stage I provided a new home for the discussion at Harmless Sky.
Comments are now closed on the old thread. If you want to refer to comments there then it is easy to do so by left-clicking on the comment number, selecting ‘Copy Link Location’ and then setting up a link in the normal way.
Here’s to the next 10,000 comments.
Useful links:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
The original Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs thread is here with 10,000 comments.
Bob_FJ
Interesting bit of environmental news you cited:
Sounds ominous.
It is well known that kangaroos, wallabies, etc. (like domestic cattle and sheep) emit significant quantities of the super greenhouse gas, methane, and that methane is gradually converted to the weaker greenhouse gas, CO2, in the atmosphere.
Therefore, it seems that koalas and kangaroos live in sort of a deadly symbiosis. If there are too many kangaroos generating too much CO2, the koalas become vulnerable to the increased toxins in the eucalyptus leaves.
One scientific study tells us that the koalas may become extinct in our lifetime and another warns of a population explosion of koalas stripping the forests. Sounds like the controversy surrounding the expanding polar bear population (which will, however, soon become extinct, due to AGW, according to WWF reports). At any rate it looks like there is no “consensus of 2,500 mainstream scientists” on the plight of the koalas, as there is on AGW.
Max
Bob, Max: Koalas and kangaroos in a deadly symbiosis of doom; well, I just somehow knew that the situation was worse than we ever thought. ;o)
Reason suggests that mutually contradictory scare stories like this should cancel out, like matter and antimatter, vanishing in a flash of pure logic. But observation tells us that this is not so, unfortunately …
Lizards face extinction from global warming: study
http://www.reuters.com/article/comments/idUSTRE64C4PV20100513
Brute, that lizard article is a very good example of questionable science and lazy journalism, somehow a very common combination where AGW is concerned.
The vast majority of the comments are critical, which says something too. Here is a comment, by Tomas57:
‘Sinervo made models of lizards with thermal monitors and left them in the searing sun of southern Mexico to measure how the reptiles would react to temperatures at different altitudes.’
Computer lizards, not real lizards. As any programmer will tell you, garbage in, garbage out.
‘”I’ve been out there doing a lot of sampling over the past few years and you see the lizards in the morning and you see them in the evening. But in the hottest part of day, it’s just too hot, you don’t see them at all,” Bastiaans said.’
So the lizards were smart enough to stay out of the hot sun, but the tourists weren’t? So, beside the fact that the lizards are smarter than the humans, typical cold-blooded behavior is somehow aberrant?
Meanwhile, the rising heat of global warming is leading to a disturbing rash of animal suicides right here in London.
Alex,
I liked this comment………
Did I read that correctly? Let me read it again.
OK. I think the statement is saying that lizards we haven’t discovered yet are going extinct because of global warming. In even simpler terms, we don’t know that they are there but we know that they are dying out because of us.
If there is no honest mistake in the wording of the statement, then whoever uttered that statement should be stripped of all credentials as an Earthling and be declared as an alien fifth columnist. We don’t actually know that there are aliens out there, of course, but we know that we have successfully killed off most of them, and a few remaining survivors are now pretending to be human scientists sowing discord among Earthlings.
Brute / Bob_FJ / Alex
I’d like to see a study about the imminent extinction of the following animal and plant species due to AGW:
ticks
fleas
chiggers
cockroaches
mosquitoes
houseflies
slugs
poison ivy (and oak)
crabgrass
ragweed
kudzu
hydrilla
Have any of you seen anything out there?
Max
PS Then there is the “common cold” virus, another species that will certainly be doomed to extinction with the warmer temperatures expected from AGW.
Max,
I’m not particularly a big fan of these things……they rest passively around the (outside) of the house and as you approach they tend to fly directly toward your head. They should go. Evil, prehistoric looking things. I’m certain they serve some purpose in God’s garden of delights…..but I could live without them.
Save a rat
Brute
Another endangered species
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1032/4607304050_7cfa92e911_o.jpg
Brute Reur 430:
Actually Brute, I reckon that is very cleverly worded. It seems to me that the more outrageous a project is, the more likely it is to attract funding. Take for instance the Pen Hadow/Catlin circus. Did you see over at WUWT recently that somehow they got funding to do a REPEAT TRIP !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sheez!
Lizard Armageddon thread at WUWT:
I remember that one of the comments touched on the widespread loss of frogs as being caused by a fungus, and illogically how it rapidly spread around the world. Erh; just where the researchers were going to look for it.
We have something similar in Oz, where Eucalypt (gum) trees in some areas are attacked in their roots by a fungus, and eventually die. (dieback disease). Parks people have woken up to the fact that its distribution correlates overwhelmingly with where people go. (down south here and way up north in Queensland) Part of a national park near me is closed off because of this, and one park I know has soft disinfectant mats to walk through at entry.
Seeing is Believing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2qVNK6zFgE&feature=player_embedded
A couple of years ago I read Tim Flannery’s 2006 book The Weather Makers. Here’s what he said about the now (apparently) extinct golden toad, Bufo periglenes, of Costa Rica:
“The golden toad was the first documented victim of global warming. We had killed it with our profligate use of coal-fired electricity and our oversize cars just as surely as if we had flattened its forest with bulldozers.”
He leaves remarkably little room for doubt there.
However, this recent article in Science magazine suggests otherwise. The dry conditions which are said to make amphibians vulnerable to the chytrid fungus, are part of El Niño, which has been studied for a relatively short time. “…it’s hard to tell if the unusually dry conditions that contributed to the extinction were part of a natural cycle or connected to global climate change patterns. That’s because reliable temperature and moisture data for the Monteverde forests go back only to the 1970s.”
‘“We expected to see some kind of trend related to global warming, yet when we developed the record it turned out the strongest trends were El Niño-related,” says Anchukaitis [climate scientist Kevin Anchukaitis], referring to the cyclical weather pattern that affects rainfall and temperatures on the Pacific coast of North America. In Monteverde, El Niño caused an unusually severe dry season at about the time the golden toad was wiped out.’
But, as is often the case, the authors include a boilerplate warning about AGW at the end, even when their paper does not support the case that AGW directly contributed to the thing they were studying.
Kevin Anchukaitis: “The fact that our research suggests it was El Niño and not anthropogenic climate change shouldn’t be any comfort when considering the future impact of climate change.”
Alex Cull,
Tim Flannelly did you utter?
Wash your mouth out!
Alex Cull,
Look, sorry for my outburst just above; Flannelly is relatively harmless compared with Al Gore or Brute’s friend Jimmy, it’s just that I feel embarrassed that Flannelly was crowned “Australian of the Year” in 2007.
I should remember to take my blood pressure medication regularly, every day!
Bob, no worries! Tim does get a little intense though, doesn’t he. ;o)
Here’s a quote from one of his essays; I think it is included in his latest book “Now or Never: Why We Must Act Now to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future” (haven’t read this yet but looks interesting):
“… we are evolved to serve Earth, and that our great and distinguishing characteristic – our intelligence – is not ours alone, but Gaia’s as well, and is destined to be used by Gaia for her own purposes. James Lovelock took the name Gaia from the ancient Greeks: it was their term for the earth goddess. I believe that over the course of the twenty-first century we will again come to serve our Earth goddess, perhaps even to revere her.”
Writing about destiny in this way is fine when it’s by a priest or mystic; sounds a bit odd when the writer is meant to be a scientist, though. I’d want to ask him: as a scientist, how do you know this?
Wow. Here’s the latest innovation for all of the environmentalists. Their concern for the health and condition of the planet knows no bounds. Now they can comfortably dine on caviar, sip champagne and view the unspoiled areas of wilderness in the style and comfort that they are accustomed to.
Creature comfort: ‘Safari jet’ that becomes plush viewing platform…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1278627/Creature-comfort-British-safari-jet-transforms-plush-viewing-platform.html
Is it hot in here or is it just me?
Brute
There is obviously a problem with the “maximum/minimum” temperature records you posted (443).
They have not been “homogenized”, “massaged”, “variance adjusted” and “ex post facto corrected” as the “globally and annually averaged [hand picked] land and sea surface temperature” records (GISS, NCDC and HadCRUT) have been.
Let’s turn your friend, “Jimmy”, or the since discredited “Phil”, loose on these records, so they fit a bit better with the “theory”.
Max
Alex, Reur 441; Flannelly is “intense”,
Well that’s a point of view, like some children can be “intense” (intensely irritating)
I would like to put him across my knee and give him a good spanking, whilst crying; naughty! ….. You naughty, naughty boy!
I haven’t posted here for a long time for various reasons – not least my fascination with our recent general election. One characteristic of that election was how the dreaded global warming (described a few days ago by our new Prime Minister as “the greatest challenge facing mankind”) was hardly mentioned. Hmm – maybe not so important after all.
So was there anything about the GE that related to this topic? I can think of one: the outstanding accuracy of the exit poll. I was impressed how Professor Thrasher – who masterminded the poll – held firm against critics from all sides. Why is that relevant? Well, Thrasher trusted his empirical evidence. Need I say more?
Robin,
Its good to know that Professor Thrasher got it right. But, apart from some last minute fall away of the Lib Dem vote, didn’t all the pollsters do that? The ‘hung’ parliament came as no surprise.
I did discuss the election with a few English friends who live in the South and they were mostly of the opinion that the pollsters, not just the exit pollsters, were wrong – mainly on the basis that no-one they knew planned to vote Labour! I did win a few pounds [ not that they are worth much these days :-) ] by sticking to mainstream science, going with the pollsters and backing a hung parliament. I don’t think I need say more either!
Brute, Reur 442:
I rather like that kool kite Avro aircraft, with its top slung wings. All passengers can keep an eye on the four engines, and I doubt if just one wing could fall off, so there would not be a prolonged spiral to earth-crunch as maybe with a mid-winger. I guess they’ve put a decent RSJ or something over the wide opening in the side, and I like the widespread undercarriage. The only thing that really bothers me is how does it land without scaring away the wildlife? No reverse thrust? Big ceramic brakes and parachutes maybe on glide-in?
Also, I reckon the heavy marble flooring is a bit excessive…. Like extra jet fuel required ….. And it doesn’t fit my green credentials. I’d also like to know if the 16 million UKP’s includes a crew for say 3 years, before deciding whether to buy one. (I reckon I could probably enjoy it for say three years before it becomes a yawn)
Robin
You may already have seen this, but here is a different slant on how to approach global warming from “The Economist”:
Green view: Oblique strategies – A new look at the landscape of climate politics calls for subtler and more thoughtful approaches
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=16099521
In its Executive Summary, the Hartwell Paper cited by “The Economist” points out that Copenhagen (and Kyoto) failed because of a faulty, “guilt-based” focus and a basic misunderstanding of the nature of climate change.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/mackinderProgramme/theHartwellPaper/executiveSummary.htm
The paper points out:
While one might not agree with all the suggestions of the Hartwell Paper, it does point out what has not worked and what needs to be changed to a) first ensure that the poorest nations can develop a cost-effective energy infrastructure, b) at the same time slowly moving the world as a whole away from its dependency on carbon-based energy by developing cost-effective alternates and c) “ensuring that our societies are adequately equipped to withstand the risks and dangers that come from all the vagaries of climate, whatever their cause may be.”
Max
Brute
You’ll enjoy this one.
In an article entitled: “Von der Kunst, die Klimadebatte aufs Glatteis zu führen” (“The art of getting the climate debate on thin ice”), the “Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ) reports about “Photogate”, where a “reworked” polar bear photo was used as the cover photo for a “manifesto” by 225 climatologists published by “Science”, which complains about McCarthy-like persecution of climate researchers and the lies of climate denialists.
http://www.faz.net/s/RubC5406E1142284FB6BB79CE581A20766E/Doc~E9D1A267FAE4545C297AFA4FB22D36995~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
Australian ABC News also picked up on this latest AGW goof-up.
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/fake-photo-used-in-science-article.html
Ouch!
Max